The Age of Cairns began properly in Denmark after Dan Milkillate
had raised for himself a burial cairn, and ordered that he should
be buried in it on his death, with his royal ornaments and
armour, his horse and saddle-furniture, and other valuable goods;
and many of his descendants followed his example. But the
burning of the dead continued, long after that time, to be the
custom of the Swedes and Northmen. Iceland was occupied in the
time that Harald Harfager was the King of Norway. There were
skalds in Harald's court whose poems the people know by heart
even at the present day, together with all the songs about the
kings who have ruled in Norway since his time; and we rest the
foundations of our story principally upon the songs which were
sung in the presence of the chiefs themselves or of their sons,
and take all to be true that is found in such poems about their
feats and battles: for although it be the fashion with skalds to
praise most those in whose presence they are standing, yet no one
would dare to relete to a chief what he, and all those who heard
it, knew to be a false and imaginary, not a true account of his
deeds; because that would be mockery, not praise.

OF THE PRIEST ARE FRODE

The priest Are Frode (the learned), a son of Thorgils the son of
Geller, was the first man in this country who wrote down in the
Norse language narratives of events both old and new. In the
beginning of his book he wrote principally about the first
settlements in Iceland, the laws and government, and next of the
lagmen, and how long each had administered the law; and he
reckoned the years at first, until the time when Christianity was